OREANDA-NEWS. October 24, 2011. The Chinese Banker has recently announced its "2011 Evaluation Report on the Competitiveness of Chinese Commercial Banks". ICBC secured the first place for the fourth consecutive year by its outstanding performance in 2010. ICBC also won the crown in the ranking of nationwide commercial banks' financial appraisal. Meanwhile, ICBC also won the Chinese Banker's award for "Best Commercial Bank of the Year 2010", reported the press-centre of ICBC.

From 2005 Chinese Banker magazine has published every year the result on the study and evaluation of Chinese banks' competitiveness. In this year's report, the seventh year, Chinese Banker studied the competitiveness of Chinese banks after the financial crisis. Objective data and facts were used together with the result from on-site study through deployment of more scientific and analytical methods. All commercial banks were evaluated on the two index schemes: core competence and financial appraisal. ICBC edged out 17 nationwide commercial banks and sat on the top of the ranking, both in core competence and financial strength, a confirmation of ICBC's dominance. ICBC also scored highest in other main indexes in terms of development strategy, risk management, information technology, market influence. Winning the award by pulling further away from the competitors showed ICBC's continuous improvement in core competence and financial strength over the past few years.

The competitiveness of a commercial bank is reflected in many ways, a reflection of a bank's overall strength, said an executive with ICBC. Years of innovation and progress, especially the restructuring and going public a few years ago and efforts in sailing through this global financial crisis, ICBC has significantly improved its profitability capability, competitive edge and risk control, leading to much increased visibility and influence in the international financial market. Meanwhile, ICBC remains committed to a philosophy of "Customer First". While offering convenient, highly efficient, safe financial services to all customers, ICBC sharpens its competitive edge by taking such strategic measures as continuous enhancement on service supply capacity, financial innovation, globalization and integrated development. The ICBC executive said, during the new stage of progress, ICBC will continue living up to customers' expectation, and contribute to the increasing competitiveness of Chinese banks through business innovation and improved services to better compete in the market and sustain profit.